The Evolution of the International Monetary Fund
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NORTH CAROLINA JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL LAW Volume 5 Number 3 Article 7 Summer 1980 The Evolution of the International Monetary Fund Frank A. Southard Jr. Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.law.unc.edu/ncilj Part of the Commercial Law Commons, and the International Law Commons Recommended Citation Frank A. Southard Jr., The Evolution of the International Monetary Fund, 5 N.C. J. INT'L L. 425 (1980). Available at: https://scholarship.law.unc.edu/ncilj/vol5/iss3/7 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Carolina Law Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in North Carolina Journal of International Law by an authorized editor of Carolina Law Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. The Evolution of the International Monetary Fund by Frank A. Southard, Jr.* I. Introduction There appears to be wide agreement that the International Mone- tary Fund is an effective international institution, standing alongside its sister, the World Bank Group, as a success of the post-World War II era. The Fund devised an organization, assembled a highly professional ca- reer staff, and by the end of its first decade had emerged from financial inactivity and seeming somnolence into the self-confidence and perform- ance that have since characterized it. Shaken to its roots by the collapse of the Bretton Woods par-value system in 1971-73, the Fund displayed a capacity for survival and adaptation which gainsaid the funeral orations preached over its casket at that time. How did this successful evolution come about? This essay is ad- dressed to that question. It is not a systematic chronological account,, but rather a description of salient aspects of that evolution written from the vantage point of my years within the Fund from 1949 to 1974, first as Executive Director for the United States and thereafter as Deputy Man- aging Director. Of the many aspects that could have been included, some major and some minor, I have selected a few that I consider to have been strategic in structuring the Fund's organization, policies, and opera- tions as they are today: (1) relations between Management and staff, Executive Directors, and Governors; (2) relations between the Fund and member countries; (3) the Fund's financial resources, their use and growth; (4) the Fund's exchange-rate policy; (5) the Fund and important but selected international financial crises. These five aspects lie at the center of the Fund's development as a policy-making, policy-monitoring, and financing institution. To make * The author was Deputy Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund from 1962 until his retirement in 1974. This article has been reprinted with the kind permission of the author and the Princeton Essays in International Finance. It originally appeared as No. 135 of that series in December of 1979. Author's note: To the extent necessary, the IMF has authorized the use of unpublished information known to me by reason of my service as a staff member in the capacity of Deputy Managing Director during the period November 1, 1962 through February 28, 1974. The views expressed are solely my own and not necessarily those of the Fund. I For a thorough chronological account of the International Monetary Fund, ste I K. HORSEFIELD, THE INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND, 1945-1965 (1969) and I M. DEVRIES, THE INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND, 1966-1971 (1976). 426 N.C.J. INT'L L. & COM. REG. that clear, I begin by considering briefly what the Fund was created to do. II. The Role of the IMF It is not necessary to recount the complex negotiations that resulted in the adoption of the Articles of Agreement of the IMF at the Bretton Woods Conference in 1944.2 What is needed is to list the elements in those Articles that set forth the role assigned to the Fund: 1. Monitoring changes in par values or in exchange arrangements under which par values were not effective: The power to approve or disapprove par values was conceptually the most important pro- vision in the Articles; this was the first time that states had agreed to such an invasion of sovereignty. The Second Amendment of the Articles terminated this power unless at some future time a system of par values is reinstated by nearly unanimous agreement. But the "surveillance" mandate in new Article IV does give the Fund sub- stantial authority to evaluate the adequacy of exchange rates. 2. Administering what can be called a "code of fair practice" in the field of foreign-exchange rates and international financial transac- tions: This important power included approval or disapproval of payments restrictions or discriminatory practices. 3. Providing financial resources to member countries to assist them in dealing with payments imbalances: The framing of the terms on which resources would be made available became one of the most difficult, controversial, but also successful elements in the evolution of the Fund. 4. Developing relations with member countries and providing, or assist- ing them to provide, information needed by the Fund to carry out its responsibilities: The Fund was given the power to require that cer- tain kinds of information be provided, even if the member regarded it as sensitive and was not publishing it. In short, the Fund, while not a super-centiral bank in the full sense of that term, was and is an institution possessing broad powers to guide the international financial conduct of members and to give or withhold financial assistance. To put those powers and duties in the Articles of Agreement was one thing. To make the Fund into an effective operating institution was quite another. 11. The IMF Organization The first task was to establish a modus operandi among the three or- gans of the Fund: the Governors, the Executive Directors, and the Man- agement (i.e., the Managing Director and Deputy Managing Director) and staff. 2 The Articles have been twice amended, in 1969 to provide for Special Drawing Rights (SDR's) and in 1978 to make more basic changes. EVOLUTION OF THE IMF 427 The Articles, of course, provided some guidance. The ultimate power resides in the Board of Governors, which could and did delegate all powers to the Executive Board (except a few that could not be dele- gated, such as admitting new members or increasing quotas). The Exec- utive Board, in turn, is "responsible for conducting the business of the Fund." The Board selects a Managing Director, who serves as its Chair- man and conducts the ordinary business of the Fund under the direction of the Board. "Subject to the general control" of the Board, he is respon- sible for the "organization, appointment, and dismissal" of the staff. The problem was to make those interrelationships work in practice. What was the Board of Governors to do, and how would the Executive Board and the Management/staff divide the task of developing policy and operating the Fund? A. The Board of Governors There has never been any serious issue relating to the Board of Gov- ernors. It was evident from the beginning that a Board consisting largely of finance ministers and central-bank governors, who were destined to become very numerous as membership grew, could not meet often and could not be concerned with day-to-day Fund operations. Various de- vices were tried to give Governors opportunities for participation other than routine approval of the accounts and the passage (at Annual Meet- ings or by mail or cable) of resolutions on new members and quota in- creases. Some thought was given, but quickly dropped, to have frequent meetings. In the early years, committees were created at the Annual Meeting to discuss the Annual Report, and on one occasion there was a panel discussion. These efforts were unsuccessful; Governors attended with reluctance or not at all. In the case of the United States, as Execu- tive Director I found myself, in the status of a "Temporary Alternate Governor," representing the United States to discuss an Annual Report with which I had already dealt on the Executive Board. By about 1952- 53, it was accepted that Governors came to Annual Meetings to make speeches, perform their minimum legal duties of voting on resolutions prepared in advance by the Management and the Executive Board, talk with each other, and do business with the bankers and others who at- tended by the scores as invited guests. Indeed, achieving a decent at- tendance in the meeting hall-especially in the afternoon-has always been a problem; and in latter years the Meetings have been shortened. Not until the prolonged effort to "reform" the Fund and the mone- tary system, in the period from 1972 to 1977, was the role of the Gover- nors considered once more, in an effort to find some way they could play a more active part. The result was the provision in the Second Amend- ment (Schedule D) for a Council of the Governors to "supervise the man- agement and adaptation of the international monetary system." Pending the establishment of the Council, an Interim Committee is func- 428 N.C.J. INT'L L. & COM. REG. tioning. It has met more often than annually, settling down to twice a year, and has demonstrated an ability to reach agreement on policy mat- ters. For example, in Mexico City in April 1978 it considered an increase in quotas and the second issue of SDRs, and it agreed to them in Wash- ington in September. The membership of the Committee (and of the Council when it is established) parallels the constituencies represented on the Executive Board.